the long run.

Voluntary Attention is the fixing of the mind earnestly and intently upon
some particular object, at the same time shutting out from consciousness
other objects pressing for entrance. _Hamilton_ has defined it as
"consciousness voluntarily applied under its law of limitations to some
determinate object." The same writer goes on to state that "the greater
the number of objects to which our consciousness is simultaneously
extended, the smaller is the intensity with which it is able to consider
each, and consequently the less vivid and distinct will be the
information it contains of the several objects. When our interest in any
particular object is excited, and when we wish to obtain all the
knowledge concerning it in our power, it behooves us to limit our
consideration to that object to the exclusion of others."

The human mind has the power of attending to only one object at a time,
although it is able to pass from one object to another with a marvelous
degree of speed, so rapidly, in fact, that some have held that it could
grasp several things at once. But the best authorities, Eastern and
Western, hold to the "single idea" theory as being correct. On this point
we may quote a few authorities.

_Jouffroy_ says that "It is established by experience that we cannot give
our attention to two different objects at the same time." And _Holland_
states that "Two thoughts, however closely related to one another,
cannot be presumed to exist at the same time." And _Lewes_ has told us
that "The nature of our organism prevents our having more than one aspect
of an object at each instant presented to consciousness." _Whateley_
says: "The best philosophers are agreed that the mind cannot actually
attend to more than one thing at a time, but, when it appears to be doing
so it is really shifting with prodigious rapidity backward and forward
from one to the other."

By giving a concentrated Voluntary Attention to an object, we not only
are able to see and think about it with the greatest possible degree of
clearness, but the mind has a tendency, under such circumstances, to
bring into the field of consciousness all the different ideas associated
in our memory with that object or subject, and to build around the object
or subject a mass of associated facts and information. And at the same
time the Attention given the subject makes more vivid and clear all that
we learn about the thing at the time, and, in fact, all tha